Each round will last one week, to allow players to schedule their matches.

The match may be played using any medium available.

The match may be played either live or as a correspondence game, as long as it's finished within the week.

Both players will report the result of the match to the tournament administrators, and if possible, provide a transcript of the game.

A win (or Bye) will result in 1 point, a loss 0, and a draw 1/2.

In subsequent rounds, players with equal (or close) scores will be paired against each other, with modifications made by the administrators so that players do not play the same color twice in a row, and they do not play the same player twice.

Every player will play in every round. If we have an odd number of players, the player left out will receive a Bye for that round. Players will not receive more than one Bye for the entire tournament.

The number of rounds will be determined by the number of players signed up to play, at the admins' discretion. At minimum we will play the same number of rounds as a single-elimination tournament would net us, but we may increase it to allow players to play more games.

If too few players sign up, we will switch to a round-robin format.

barring unforseen circumstances, signups will close March 2nd. to sign up, simply post in this thread.

The first round will start Sunday, March 4th.

Disputes will be arbitrated by the tournament directors. If a director is involved in the dispute, they will recuse themselves from participating in the resolution of said dispute. In the event of a dispute between two directors, there will be a fight to the death, livestreamed on twitch.tv.

the tournament directors are currently dferrantino and aeberbach. If anyone else would like to assist in the tournament's administration (which will not prevent you from participating in the tournament) then speak up now.

(text shamelessly hacked up from dferrantino's original)

this is about strengthening this community, remembering alpha, and having fun. so there you have it - sign up, and let's play some chess.

Glorious Admin here. In addition to what pauli said, the tournament is also open to those of you who haven't played chess before. There will be players of all skill levels playing, and the tournament is set up such that you will be matched against players of similar skill.

If you already have a ranking (be it official or just off of some website) or would prefer to be placed against weaker/stronger players, feel free to post it here and we'll take it into account when we seed the first round.

I second this. Your account on chess.com can also be linked with the facebook app so you can complete your games on FB as well. It's very handy. There are also blitz games. All free! But if you want to access the learning tools on the site, there is a monthly fee =(.

Are there any good iOS asynch chess apps? Notably, any that integrate with chess.com without needing a Facebook account? Or, worst case, integrate with chess.com using a Facebook account?

Chess.com has an iOS and an Android app.

Awesome, downloading.

Heavy amount of ads, but seems to work well enough.

Username is M4EOzzy.

Yeah it's unfortunate.

Also, warning to anyone who's not using it yet: the Chess.com app has video ads with sound as well. They can be skipped before they play by pressing the back button on your (Android) phone and then clicking the X on the top-right corner of the ad. Be cautious if you're using the app in a place where sudden noises are frowned upon.

Are there any good iOS asynch chess apps? Notably, any that integrate with chess.com without needing a Facebook account? Or, worst case, integrate with chess.com using a Facebook account?

Chess.com has an iOS and an Android app.

Awesome, downloading.

Heavy amount of ads, but seems to work well enough.

Username is M4EOzzy.

Yeah it's unfortunate.

Also, warning to anyone who's not using it yet: the Chess.com app has video ads with sound as well. They can be skipped before they play by pressing the back button on your (Android) phone and then clicking the X on the top-right corner of the ad. Be cautious if you're using the app in a place where sudden noises are frowned upon.

Like at my desk at work...where I just experienced said ad. Fortunately, I could tell video was loading before the sound came on.